Breaking the blockchain: Crypto drama hits East Village stage

Veteran crypto journalist Benjamin Schiller is bringing "the drama and intrigue of the Bitcoin world to life" in a new play opening tomorrow (Wednesday!).

Here are details via the EVG inbox...

Set in the East Village, "Happenstance" follows the story of a man facing prison time for his role in the early development of Bitcoin. As he grapples with his fate, his family and girlfriend pull him in different legal, financial and spiritual directions, exploring themes of freedom, morality and the human impact of cryptocurrency. 

Schiller runs the features and opinion desks at CoinDesk, the crypto-journo outlet that broke the FTX scandal. He drew inspiration from real-life figures like the disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to craft a human story within the often technical world of Bitcoin. 

"Happenstance" breaks new ground as one of the first plays to make Bitcoin a central theme, boldly bringing cryptocurrency to the stage in New York City. 

The play is scheduled for five performances tomorrow through Saturday at the Red Room/KGB Bar, 85 E. Fourth St., between Second Avenue and the Bowery. Find times and tickets here.

About a heavy-hitting production coming to the Gene Frankel Theater

EVG contributor Clare Gemima pointed out this production of interest that premieres this coming week... "Sugar Ray" makes its theatrical debut on Thursday evening at the Gene Frankel Theater, 24 Bond St. between the Bowery and Lafayette.

Here's more about the production via the EVG inbox...

Sugar Ray Robinson was, pound for pound, the greatest boxer of all time. In his 25-year professional career, from 1940 to 1965, he was boxing history's first winner of five divisional championships (in the middleweight and welterweight divisions).  

This "King of Harlem" was renowned for his litheness, his power and his flamboyant lifestyle outside the ring. His career peaked between 1947 and 1950, before the era of TV boxing, so his style and legacy are less preserved today than those of other boxers, including his admirer, Muhammed Ali.  That's why "Sugar Ray" by playwright Laurence Holder is so significant. It recaptures Robinson's life and boxing legacy in a biographical solo show that is exciting to those who idolized him and illuminating to those who grew up after his era.

The play runs through Jan. 23. Find ticket info and COVID protocols here.

Tonight through Sunday: 'Spring Pictures of the Floating World'

From the EV Grieve inbox...

[Click image to enlarge]

And here's more information from the news release...

Peculiar Works Project announces a new site-specific sextravaganza: Spring Pictures of the Floating World (and Art of the Bedchamber), a two-part performance art installation, reimagining 17th Century Japanese Shunga — pillow books — and their 5,000-year-old Chinese inspiration.

This unique hybrid event features multiple, immersive installations that will integrate live, multi-disciplinary performance in an exhibition context.

For four nights only — Thursday (7-11pm), Friday (7-11pm), Saturday (4-11pm) and Sunday (4-8pm) — more than 50 installation artists, designers, directors, composers, choreographers, puppeteers and performers will transform the abandoned basement of 66 East 4th Street between Bowery and Second Avenue into a grand pleasure palace.

Audiences can come and go throughout the exhibition hours, but due to its sexual nature this is an ADULTS ONLY event (NC17).

Visit the Peculiar Works Project website for more details and ticket info.

"A Personality in the East Village"

I'm interested in seeing Edgar Oliver's one-man show, “East 10th Street: Self Portrait With Empty House.” It's playing at the Axis Theater, 1 Sheridan Square, in the West Village. Here are some passages from Ben Brantley's review in the Times today:

Mr. Oliver is a poet, playwright, performance artist and actor. But above all, he is a Personality, with a capital P, a type celebrated in England as an Eccentric and in middle America as a Character. It’s not easy being a Personality in the East Village, where the willfully weird abound (or did once, anyway) and where Mr. Oliver has lived since the late 1970s. It requires an exaggerated consistency of character and style, which should seep from every pore.

In “East 10th Street,” which runs through Feb. 28 in a judiciously austere production directed by Randy Sharp, Mr. Oliver uses this sensibility to evoke his years as a tenant in an S.R.O. boarding house on Tompkins Square Park, into which he moved, fresh from Paris, in 1977, when he was 21, paying $16 a week for rent.

“East 10th Street,” which was staged in November, has developed a cult following. It’s easy to see why. Mr. Oliver depicts and embodies a bohemian, low-rent New York that scarcely exists anymore. It’s hard to imagine anyone like him, with a similar set of stories, coming out of the gentrified East Village of the early 21st century.

Let mw know if you've seen it...